How do you see the MMO (FP and RPG) market in 5 years?

Kadin

Kadin

Member
I think it's pretty obvious that right now, the genre is in a state of flux between subs and F2P. Most are now the latter but some games like ESO are still hopeful that the monthly sub-model *can* work. Do you think we'll see any radical changes between now and say 5 years from now? Think any large new game might come out that might hook you back in and maybe reinvent the whole MMO genre?

Or have you completely written off MMOs no matter how good they look? I thought this would be me a few months back but I keep getting lured back in. I'm not sure why but clearly I like the interaction with other players and just the vast openness of most games.

Lastly, what current games do you think will be gone by 2019 or sooner?
 
Yuuichi said:
Anything that's not EVE, FFXIV, or WoW will be dead and gone by 2019, easy.
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That's an interesting response as all 3 of those are sub-based games. So there's still room for a good sub-based game in our future you think? I've been of the belief that it's gonna all be F2P going forward.
 
Titan will get two dozen million paying subscribers because they hit consoles day and date, everyone will think"I can do that" and fail.
 
I'm thinking the market will see it's fare share of "GW2 clones", similarly to what we saw in the past decade regarding games desperately copping WoW.
 
Kadin said:
That's an interesting response as all 3 of those are sub-based games. So there's still room for a good sub-based game in our future you think? I've been of the belief that it's gonna all be F2P going forward.
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I believe they're all going F2P too, but that's because MMOs just kind of suck. If someone made a really good MMO that was truly fun to play, start to finish, no grinding bs and rushing to endgame, I think gamers would be happy to pay for it. The failure of the subscription model over the last years hasn't been because the subscription model sucks, it's been because every game that has used it has sucked. And I don't see that changing soon.
 
Kadin said:
That's an interesting response as all 3 of those are sub-based games. So there's still room for a good sub-based game in our future you think? I've been of the belief that it's gonna all be F2P going forward.
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I don't think FtP is going to die, but I don't see the sub model going out so easily. I see FtP as a model that demands long term engagement in a different way than subscription based content, while simultaneously being less reliable, which leaves subscription and hybrid models some breathing room.

Forsaken82 said:
I would put money on it that those 3 games don't even survive to 2019. I will be surprised if they are still relevant come 2016 to be honest.
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I could see WoW going out with it's replacement (Titan, if you will), but I don't see the other two going anywhere. FFXI is a show of what I expect from FFXIV, and EVE has a niche that something would have to fill before it dies.
 
Subscriptions have been dead for awhile, they are just an early adopter fee on ESO like they were for SWTOR. ESO will probably be the last mainstream mmo that even "attempts" it.

Many existing games will still be subsisting along five years from now.

thelurkinghorror said:
DayZ and rust will change everything

Edit
...and Everquest next too
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I think MMOs are going to start taking inspiration from DayZ, Eve, UO on player interaction. Lighter punishment than even DayZ but some of the aspects are going to start leaking into slash being rediscovered in the MMO space.
 
The next 5 years?

Probably two or three more WoW expansions (I know they want to do them yearly, but it's Blizzard, so...). Only the hardest of the hardcore fans will care anymore, but there's still enough of them to make it worth mentioning. More of the same is hardly a bad thing for WoW and that's what the remaining players seem to want. It will probably go F2P as well, but a subscription option will remain for cash shop perks and the like.

Guild Wars 2 will keep on trucking, with the Living Story improving in quality and continuing to outpace the rest of the industry in terms of content releases. I'm sure eventually we'll see an expansion or two, but lots of new, unexpected features will continue to be delivered for free. It will release in additional Asian markets (already some hints of that already) and do very very well. Nobody is going to re-capture WoW's sales and population numbers, but GW2 will continue to be the high water mark for content support, speed and quality of life (go read any preview for an unreleased MMO and count how often they're compared to GW2).

LotRO will (finally) reach Mordor, and it should be pretty cool. The game has a really loyal following and they deserve to see the game reach its structural conclusion. It won't die, as there's enough ancillary material in the Tolkien archives to make expansions into eternity, but this is a watershed moment worth mentioning.

Wildstar will go completely F2P within the first year, as the target audience (Vanilla/TBC raiders) are now 10 years older and can't indulge in that play style anymore (despite how much they claim they want it back). Lukewarm reception from most other MMO fans due to archaic questing structure, odd progression scheme and lack of customization. Fades into the background of MMOs that are still around but not very active quicker than anyone expects.

Speaking of MMOs that sort of linger but don't exactly die, Rift will keep doing well enough to stay afloat and continue to release expansions. Trion has really good support and they're a great company, and I hope their ambitious side projects like Defiance don't cause them to implode.

EVE will keep being EVE, and that's both awesome and scary at the same time.

Everything SOE makes but ultimately bombs will live on in zombie form via their crazy multipass system.

TESO, DOA. MMO fans don't want TES-style gameplay, TES fans don't want an MMO. I don't need to say more than that. F2P in under 6 months, plug pulled within the first 2 years.

Landmark does very well as a building game and EQN does very well as an MMO, but SOE lacks the discipline to get them to meet in the sweet spot that their approach requires. By all accounts it is a huge success, but like just about every other MMO since WoW it will be hyped to hell and back and expectations will not be met. It'll still be really cool though.

More old MMO servers will follow in the path of Warhammer Online and shut down as their populations move on to other games. Age of Conan, TERA and Neverwinter would be my top picks. EA may cut their losses and pull the plug on SWTOR, but I doubt it. All comes down to cold, hard math, the players don't even factor into the equation.

I can't comment on the MMOFPS side, though I imagine Destiny will do very well and we'll see more attempts to cash in on that genre (wouldn't surprise me if Borderlands 3 is more MMO-like)

Raide said:
With a few random ones still trying to ask for a subscription.
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I'm shocked this is still happening now.

LAUGHTREY said:
Everything will suck except Warcraft or Titan if it's out by then.
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Titan was shit-canned and it's development staff cut down to ~30 people in a broom closet. Given the way Blizzard works, I wouldn't count on Titan being more than concept art and bullet points within the OP's 5 year window.
 
I'll pay for a sub for a catalog of games like SOE all access. $15/month for 2-3 games that I would be playing is worth it IMO. I'm still looking for an alternative to the hotbar combat. Something like PSO2 is more up my style. I enjoyed FFXI and FFXII as well.

I see another genre of game passing up both the MMOFPS and RTS. League of Legends kind of replaced WoW, and then something will come along and replace it.
 
More sub games will be viable, with fewer subs each, as WoW fades and people aren't being asked to pay two subs a month.

The sub games that do take off/are viable will be niche affairs, because that's the kind of game that supports subs - there's a market out there that want to live in a consistent world where they're not the hero rather than in a bar-filling simulator, whether it's a UO or an FF11 pre-Abyssea or an EVE, and they're easier to monetize with sub methods because they don't want to P2W (after all, they're not there to "win"!) and there aren't enough of them to nickel-and-dime via skins. Of course, EVE-style time for ingame currency will happen, though: it's too simple a solution to the problem of unregulated RMT AND of retaining endgame users.

Subs will, however, stop always being $15/mo. I expect both servicewide bulk deals and China-style pay by the hour options.

I don't see any major current game completely folding other than TOR potentially getting its license yanked. It's just too easy to have a skeleton staff keep a few servers up while cranking up monetization on the few whales that remain. However, older titles like EQ and FF11 will enter a half-life like iRO is in now.

In terms of gameplay, tabtarget will be completely out for standard titles, relegated to deliberate WoW clones (done as the standard is today) and FF11/14 1.0-style approximations of the standard JRPG system (looooooong cooldowns everywhere).
Finders will remain popular, but slowly evolve in detail until they begin to resemble old-style search comments again.
 
A dangerous place, similar as always, but different, though I don't claim to know how. I do know it won't be like the last 5 years, and all the cards ain't on the table yet, so the interesting hands shown so far are not the complete picture. I do think I see alot of fracturing.

Retro said:
The next 5 years?

Probably two or three more WoW expansions (I know they want to do them yearly, but it's Blizzard, so...). Only the hardest of the hardcore fans will care anymore, but there's still enough of them to make it worth mentioning. More of the same is hardly a bad thing for WoW and that's what the remaining players seem to want. It will probably go F2P as well, but a subscription option will remain for cash shop perks and the like.

Guild Wars 2 will keep on trucking, with the Living Story improving in quality and continuing to outpace the rest of the industry in terms of content releases. I'm sure eventually we'll see an expansion or two, but lots of new, unexpected features will continue to be delivered for free. It will release in additional Asian markets (already some hints of that already) and do very very well. Nobody is going to re-capture WoW's sales and population numbers, but GW2 will continue to be the high water mark for content support, speed and quality of life (go read any preview for an unreleased MMO and count how often they're compared to GW2).

LotRO will (finally) reach Mordor, and it should be pretty cool. The game has a really loyal following and they deserve to see the game reach its structural conclusion. It won't die, as there's enough ancillary material in the Tolkien archives to make expansions into eternity, but this is a watershed moment worth mentioning.

Wildstar will go completely F2P within the first year, as the target audience (Vanilla/TBC raiders) are now 5 years older and many can't enjoy that play style anymore due to post-TBC WoW indulgences (despite how much they claim they want it back). Lukewarm reception from most other MMO fans due to non-braindead questing structure, differing progression scheme and lack of customization. Fades into the background of MMOs that are still around but not very active quicker than anyone expects.

Speaking of MMOs that sort of linger but don't exactly die, Rift will keep doing well enough to stay afloat and continue to release expansions. Trion has really good support and they're a great company, and I hope their ambitious side projects like Defiance don't cause them to implode.

EVE will keep being EVE, and that's both awesome and scary at the same time.

Everything SOE makes but ultimately bombs will live on in zombie form via their crazy multipass system.

TESO, DOA. MMO fans don't want TES-style gameplay, TES fans don't want an MMO. I don't need to say more than that. F2P in under 6 months, plug pulled within the first 2 years.

Landmark does very well as a building game and EQN does very well as an MMO, but SOE lacks the discipline to get them to meet in the sweet spot that their approach requires. By all accounts it is a huge success, but like just about every other MMO since WoW it will be hyped to hell and back and expectations will not be met. It'll still be really cool though.

More old MMO servers will follow in the path of Warhammer Online and shut down as their populations move on to other games. Age of Conan, TERA and Neverwinter would be my top picks. EA may cut their losses and pull the plug on SWTOR, but I doubt it. All comes down to cold, hard math, the players don't even factor into the equation.

I can't comment on the MMOFPS side, though I imagine Destiny will do very well and we'll see more attempts to cash in on that genre (wouldn't surprise me if Borderlands 3 is more MMO-like)



I'm shocked this is still happening now.



Titan was shit-canned and it's development staff cut down to ~30 people in a broom closet. Given the way Blizzard works, I wouldn't count on Titan being more than concept art and bullet points within the OP's 5 year window.
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Fixed for what is right not what feels right.
 
I expect to see it broadening in terms of game types, but mostly f2p.

I expect to see more in the mould of GW, though that doesn't really count as a mmo technically.

I hope there is OR based mmo within 5 years. Not that it requires a OR but that it works well with the OR. Thats the one thing that would get me to play a sub based game again.
 
Retro said:
The next 5 years?

Probably two or three more WoW expansions (I know they want to do them yearly, but it's Blizzard, so...). Only the hardest of the hardcore fans will care anymore, but there's still enough of them to make it worth mentioning. More of the same is hardly a bad thing for WoW and that's what the remaining players seem to want. It will probably go F2P as well, but a subscription option will remain for cash shop perks and the like.

Guild Wars 2 will keep on trucking, with the Living Story improving in quality and continuing to outpace the rest of the industry in terms of content releases. I'm sure eventually we'll see an expansion or two, but lots of new, unexpected features will continue to be delivered for free. It will release in additional Asian markets (already some hints of that already) and do very very well. Nobody is going to re-capture WoW's sales and population numbers, but GW2 will continue to be the high water mark for content support, speed and quality of life (go read any preview for an unreleased MMO and count how often they're compared to GW2).

LotRO will (finally) reach Mordor, and it should be pretty cool. The game has a really loyal following and they deserve to see the game reach its structural conclusion. It won't die, as there's enough ancillary material in the Tolkien archives to make expansions into eternity, but this is a watershed moment worth mentioning.

Wildstar will go completely F2P within the first year, as the target audience (Vanilla/TBC raiders) are now 10 years older and can't indulge in that play style anymore (despite how much they claim they want it back). Lukewarm reception from most other MMO fans due to archaic questing structure, odd progression scheme and lack of customization. Fades into the background of MMOs that are still around but not very active quicker than anyone expects.

Speaking of MMOs that sort of linger but don't exactly die, Rift will keep doing well enough to stay afloat and continue to release expansions. Trion has really good support and they're a great company, and I hope their ambitious side projects like Defiance don't cause them to implode.

EVE will keep being EVE, and that's both awesome and scary at the same time.

Everything SOE makes but ultimately bombs will live on in zombie form via their crazy multipass system.

TESO, DOA. MMO fans don't want TES-style gameplay, TES fans don't want an MMO. I don't need to say more than that. F2P in under 6 months, plug pulled within the first 2 years.

Landmark does very well as a building game and EQN does very well as an MMO, but SOE lacks the discipline to get them to meet in the sweet spot that their approach requires. By all accounts it is a huge success, but like just about every other MMO since WoW it will be hyped to hell and back and expectations will not be met. It'll still be really cool though.

More old MMO servers will follow in the path of Warhammer Online and shut down as their populations move on to other games. Age of Conan, TERA and Neverwinter would be my top picks. EA may cut their losses and pull the plug on SWTOR, but I doubt it. All comes down to cold, hard math, the players don't even factor into the equation.

I can't comment on the MMOFPS side, though I imagine Destiny will do very well and we'll see more attempts to cash in on that genre (wouldn't surprise me if Borderlands 3 is more MMO-like)



I'm shocked this is still happening now.



Titan was shit-canned and it's development staff cut down to ~30 people in a broom closet. Given the way Blizzard works, I wouldn't count on Titan being more than concept art and bullet points within the OP's 5 year window.
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Agree with most of this, except i would put WoW at a guaranteed 3 expacs with possibly more depending on the market at that time, as of now they could easily pull that off.
We don't know for sure where they are going with their follow up, so I'm hesitant on saying more past those initial 3.
 
There's no way in hell Blizzard's next MMO is going to live up to the hype. I mean it's just a name right now but as soon as any details are released about it, people are going to go nuts. By that time people will be begging for the game's release as if they're the saviours of the genre. We've suffered so many crap MMOs and some that are not quite there. We need this.
 
Milennia said:
Agree with most of this, except i would put WoW at a guaranteed 3 expacs with possibly more depending on the market at that time, as of now they could easily pull that off.
We don't know for sure where they are going with their follow up, so I'm hesitant on saying more past those initial 3.
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I feel like the steam is running out on WoW expansions and they'll eventually reach a point where it's just cost prohibitive to keep developing them. I figure Warlords and two more and that's about it before it just stops working.

That said, the damn game has been out for 9 damn years, and that's hardly anything to sneeze at. It's just not going to last forever.
 
Retro said:
I feel like the steam is running out on WoW expansions and they'll eventually reach a point where it's just cost prohibitive to keep developing them. I figure Warlords and two more and that's about it before it just stops working.

That said, the damn game has been out for 9 damn years, and that's hardly anything to sneeze at. It's just not going to last forever.
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Its so hard to judge this game, i played it at a high level since BC and the high raid scene is fading slowly, and then every new expac it grows and declines, massive love hate relationships.

Need to see how the warlords launch numbers are, and the. Compare them to the mid expansion numbers, will be a while before we get a decent estimate.
 
No Man's Sky seamless travel and procedural content + Voxels from EQ Next + Player vs Player and Economy = What it would take to get me back. I also wouldn't mind Oculus Rift support

I think WoW will still be the best and most successful MMO in 5 years. Especially if the movie is a hit

Star Citizen's success will also be interesting although it's more space sim than FPS (has both)

The future of MMO's will have player generated and procedurally generated content. Add in some Virtual Reality here and there too
 
I don't know, but I'm sure it will be better than now, because I can't imagine things getting worse than they are at the moment.
 
Titan is the next Starcraft Ghost. You can count on it. The really sad part is, is that the game was in development for over 5 years and they didn't even release ONE screenshot. That is a huge red flag about the confidence they had in the game right there. They were teasing and and promoting WoW 4 years before it even came out.

Honestly my last hopes for this genre lie in EQ Next and Brad McQuaid's new game.

Won said:
I don't know, but I'm sure it will be better than now, because I can't imagine things getting worse than they are at the moment.
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It's absolutely terrible right now.
 
Forsaken82 said:
I would put money on it that those 3 games don't even survive to 2019. I will be surprised if they are still relevant come 2016 to be honest.
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Everquest peaked at 500k players and was still getting expansions as of a year or two ago. WoW isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I expect it to eventually lose it's subscription cost though and either adapt the GW2 model or go F2P with a cash shop.
 
I guess the thing with me is that I want to see this genre get better. I still think it has the potential to really give us something great. But I think the devs and publishers are doing to have to vastly change their way of thinking from short-term to long-term. It seems right now that they're really intent on getting back their investment as fast as they can which makes sense to me, but it just doesn't work in the end.

Look at how much money BioWare threw at TOR when they made that game. That's what I'm talking about. Put in the quality and time to build something good. They screwed things up in other ways once it launched but I think they were in the right frame of mind. Then EA happened and the rest is history. F2P absolutely killed that game for me in so many ways it almost makes me want to cry.

But I still have hope that another great MMO is in our future.
 
with the advent of the occulus rift, the scale of MMO games, and the sheer adventure to be had seems to be quite an attractive proposition!

I don't know, perhaps with virtual reality MMO's will be the future.
 
I think there's a strong push towards subs now for smaller devs. I expect the mainstream will almost completely switch to F2P with 2-3 notable exceptions, while at the same time there will be multiple indie hardcore MMOs successfully running on subs and living off small populations.
 
Kadin said:
Look at how much money BioWare threw at TOR when they made that game. That's what I'm talking about. Put in the quality and time to build something good. They screwed things up in other ways once it launched but I think they were in the right frame of mind. Then EA happened and the rest is history. F2P absolutely killed that game for me in so many ways it almost makes me want to cry.
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There's a lot of things contradictory and wrong in this statement, though. Bioware didn't put in the quality or time to build something good; SWTOR runs on the Hero Engine which was released in 2006 and has pretty much universally been regarded as garbage even before SWTOR was announced in 2009. All they threw at it was money, which was coming from EA right from the start (remember, Bioware has been owned by EA since 2007). The first trailer was revealed at EA's stage show at E3, actually.

F2P may have killed the game for you, but it saved the game. It fell below 1m subscribers after only 7 months and was no longer able to stay afloat, so they kicked it over to F2P just a month shy of its first anniversary and it's limped on ever since. The only other option was to pull the plug.

Trust me. You do not want another SWTOR-like situation. Things were not screwed up 'once it launched', things were being screwed up from the get-go.
 
Most of what WoW is doing right now for their new expansion, revolves around retaining as opposed to expanding their current player base.

Everything from revamped models being a feature as opposed to a side project, to insta 90s for current players who don't want to grind out content again (same for players coming back, as opposed to new ones).

Im unsure how other MMOs are doing these regarding player retention/growth.
 
Unfortunately I think it will still be WoW clones with small variations. I suppose Everquest Next could change things if they can deliver what they've promised.

I could see EQ 1 and 2 being shut down if they got the hardcore fanbase for those games onto EQN. SWTOR, Rift, Aion, etc. All those smaller games seem to be doing well enough to survive right now with the free to play model so it's really hard to say if they will survive for a long time.
 
Jarnet87 said:
I could see EQ 1 and 2 being shut down if they got the hardcore fanbase for those games onto EQN.
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If Sony is willing to keep a game like Vanguard alive, they'll keep EQ1 and 2 around forever.

Edit: I loved the potential Vanguard had, but it was a complete train wreck. Still the best crafting system I've ever played in an MMO, and the Blood Mage still stands out as a really unique concept.
 
I think sub-model model can work (It's the model I also prefer, personally), the problems are 1) Modern MMORPG design is all about theme-park instanced instant gratification 2) Developers can't put out out enough content and people get bored 2 weeks in

Sub-model worked for games like FFXI because they were slow-paced, immersive experience. End game wasn't something available to everyone, It was something you had to ear and the leveling process was part of the fun.

These days MMORPG are all about end-game and getting you to the highest level possible in a few days so you can start the end-game. Developers release new MMORPGs where you get to max level in 2 days and then complete the end-game "challenges" in 3. They need to stop riding WoW's dick and start getting their shit together.
 
By then I have a strong feeling that WoW will be on it's last legs as far as subs goes. After that, prepare for the reign of F2P. Look at the popularity of games like LoL, while not MMOs, they have shown exactly how strong the F2P market can be.
 
Retro said:
There's a lot of things contradictory and wrong in this statement, though. Bioware didn't put in the quality or time to build something good; SWTOR runs on the Hero Engine which was released in 2006 and has pretty much universally been regarded as garbage even before SWTOR was announced in 2009. All they threw at it was money, which was coming from EA right from the start (remember, Bioware has been owned by EA since 2007). The first trailer was revealed at EA's stage show at E3, actually.

F2P may have killed the game for you, but it saved the game. It fell below 1m subscribers after only 7 months and was no longer able to stay afloat, so they kicked it over to F2P just a month shy of its first anniversary and it's limped on ever since. The only other option was to pull the plug.

Trust me. You do not want another SWTOR-like situation. Things were not screwed up 'once it launched', things were being screwed up from the get-go.
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I don't see it that way. EA did not have the influence it had from the get go. BioWare was doing what they were doing for a while and at some point, EA made some changes which conflicted with the Dr.s and they soon bailed after launch. People will say they left of their own free will but I have a hard time believing that. It was very clear that things were bad when they lost a good chunk of their team. I know some of that is normal once a game launches but this was pretty severe.

I'm not saying the game was perfect and built on state of the art software but I honestly followed the dev from day one up to launch and stuck with it until about 2 months after F2P. It might have saved the game but it didn't in any way, to me, make it better. I still think the game itself was very good at launch and then a bunch of missed steps and false promises lead to what it is today.
 
MMOs are already shifting more towards real time action and I see that continuing.

The EQ/WoW style combat of auto attack and dozens of hotkey abilities has pretty much reached its zenith so developers will experiment with real time action and FPS style combat.

The acceptance of this shift will largely depend upon quality and hype level of the games. So Bungie's Destiny will likely play a large role either way.
 
I think there's plenty of room for the sub model to still exist. I mean, people are eating up things like paying for online, season passes and F2P microtransactions which functionally serve the same purpose for those types of games so I don't really see the point in categorizing it as something else.

It's really about finding the correct model for the type of game in question (and hoping it's still a game worth enjoying for a sizable chuck of people so it stays afloat). Subs work for WoW and FF14 and EVE and whatever just like F2P works for LoL and DOTA2 and Smite and whatever.
 
Retro said:
Um, that's a whole post there, care to bold face or just trim it down to what you supposedly fixed?
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Wildstar's biggest danger isn't their potential playerbases gametime, it's expectations. WS' design will test this harder than every other MMO out there outside a few that got inspired by EVE and other hardcore pvp MMOs due to this.

Xiaoki said:
MMOs are already shifting more towards real time action and I see that continuing.

The EQ/WoW style combat of auto attack and dozens of hotkey abilities has pretty much reached its zenith so developers will experiment with real time action and FPS style combat.

The acceptance of this shift will largely depend upon quality and hype level of the games. So Bungie's Destiny will likely play a large role either way.
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I've always heard not that auto-hotkey was peaked, but that action-heavy combat was now POSSIBLE. It's a restriction thing, once that physical/technical limitation's off the gameplay built in that fugue state is passe, and the calls for gameplay that couldn't have existed before grow.

But yeah, action is big now and going to get bigger. I have predicted it will be harsher than people imagine, though; situational awareness and reaction time just got a whooooooooooooooooole lot more important than they already were.
 
Kadin said:
That's an interesting response as all 3 of those are sub-based games. So there's still room for a good sub-based game in our future you think? I've been of the belief that it's gonna all be F2P going forward.
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Eve monthly sub can also be paid with ingame money which is a big push for many.
 
Kadin said:
That's an interesting response as all 3 of those are sub-based games. So there's still room for a good sub-based game in our future you think? I've been of the belief that it's gonna all be F2P going forward.
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Just goes to show a good MMO is worth the price. There is no F2P alternative that can match EvE or WoW.
 
Kadin said:
BioWare was doing what they were doing for a while and at some point, EA made some changes which conflicted with the Dr.s and they soon bailed after launch.
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As much as they deserve all of the hate they get, I don't think you can actually chalk SWTOR entirely up to EA "making some changes;" SWTOR was going to be running on Hero and using Diku-style gameplay no matter what, and this was BioWare's first MMO and it shows. And while EA probably meddled a lot, they're also responsible for the license, voice acting and trailers, arguably the game's biggest claims to fame. That (estimated) $150-200 million didn't come from Bioware, after all.

Kadin said:
[F2P] might have saved the game but it didn't in any way, to me, make it better.
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Oh, I'm not saying it made it a better game by a long shot, just that it kept the game afloat. The monetization scheme was absurd ($2.50 to hide your helmet? Pay-per-Action Bar? Horrible), almost like someone had written a big list of things NOT to do when converting to a F2P model and somehow that ended up being used instead. But going F2P lowered the entry bar to zero, and that brought a lot of people in... or at least enough to keep the game running.

Kadin said:
I still think the game itself was very good at launch and then a bunch of missed steps and false promises lead to what it is today.
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Par for the course with MMOs, honestly. From the entire 38 Studios debacle to Paul Barnett's double-barreled bullshiting for Warhammer Online to Brad McQuaid's drug-induced forum rants at 3am about how Vanguard was going to be the best thing ever. Very few have gotten it right (only three MMOs in the last decade have maintained or increased their populations post-launch without switching models: WoW, EVE and Guild Wars 2). It's a tough, expensive genre to break into, and a hard one to stay afloat in. To reduce risk for an already risky venture, most developers crib heavily from the "undisputed champion", which is why we've had to deal with 31 flavors of WoW since 2005.

On the flip side, success doesn't have to be defined by comparison to WoW; LotRO and Rift, for example, are really good games from really competent developers. LotRO still has an amazing game world that breaks with a lot of MMO tropes, and Trion has managed to make Rift more than the "WoW 2.0" it was at launch. It's not the all-or-nothing approach people make it out to be, and you can still have a really good time with the so-called 'unsuccessful' MMOs. People are still playing SWTOR, TERA and the like, even though people like to write them off as 'failed' because they were forced to go F2P. That has more to do with the economy tanking, attitudes shifting and the market reacting to expansion than their quality, I think. There's a lot more room in the genre for more games, and not all of them have to be behemoths or major successes.

This kind of turned into a meandering post, but suffice to say things are heading in the right direction now, more than they have been for about a decade. Stuff like Guild Wars 2 is raising the bar in terms of design, content and the expectation for post-launch support. EQN looks like it will borrow heavily from ArenaNet's work (which, ironically, was cause for much rage when it was being revealed). I guess to kind of bring it back to the thread's title, I think the biggest thing about MMOs in the next 5 years is that there won't be the genre monopoly WoW created. I think we'll have EQN as the major sandbox MMO, Guild Wars 2 as the foremost "theme park" style MMO, with room for various other titles to exist, filling in the niches.

The only thing I think is absolutely going to go away forever are subscriptions. Guild Wars 2 raised the bar on what players should expect from their MMOs, in terms of pricing and post-launch support. Love it or hate it, every game that releases from here on out will be compared against it when players ask themselves why they should pay a subscription each month for what they should be getting for free?
 
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